Public Utility Rate Making in an Energy-Conscious Environment
Other Titles in This Series
The Changing Economics of World Energy, edited by Bernhard J. Abrahamsson
Indonesia's Oil, Sevinc Carlson
Desertification: Environmental Degradation in and around Arid Lands, edited by Michael H. Glantz
The Nuclear Impact: A Case Study of the Plowshare Program to Produce Natural Gas by Underground Nuclear Stimulation In the Rocky Mountains, Frank Kreith and Catherine B. Wrenn
Natural Resources for a Democratic Society: Public Participation in Decision-Making, edited by Albert E. Utton, W. R. Derrick Sewell, and Timothy O'Riordan
Social Assessment Manual: A Guide to the Preparation of the Social Well-Being Account for Planning Water Resource Projects, Stephen J. Fitzsimmons, Lorrie I. Stuart, and Peter C. Wolff
Water Needs for the Future: Political, Economic, Legal, and Technological Issues in a National and International Framework, edited by Ved P. Nanda
Environmental Effects of Complex River Development: International Experience, edited by Gilbert F. White
The Geopolitics of Energy, Melvin A. Conant and Fern Racine Gold
EARTHCARE: Global Protection of Natural Areas, edited by Edmund A. Schofield
Food, Fuel, and Shelter: A Watershed Analysis of Land-Use Tradeoffs in a Semi-Arid Region, edited by Timothy D. Tregarthen
Water in a Developing World: The Management of a Critical Resource, edited by Albert E. Utton and Ludwik A. Teclaff
Conservation and the Changing Direction of Economic Growth, edited by Bernhard J. Abrahamsson
U.S.-Canadian Energy Trade: A Study in Changing Relationships, Helmut Frank and John T. Schanz
Where We Agree: Report of the National Coal Policy Project, Francis X. Murray
Land Aridization and Drought Control, Victor Kovda
Coal Surface-Mining: The Impacts of Reclamation, James E. Rowe
Food From the Sea: The Economics and Politics of Ocean Fisheries, Frederick W. Bell
Westview Special Studies in Natural Resources and Energy Management
Public Utility Rate Making in an Energy-Conscious Environment edited by Werner Sichel
This collection of papers by some of America's most respected scholars and practitioners in the field of public utility regulation provides an up-to-date analysis of urgent problems and proposed remedies concerning the electricity and natural gas industries. The authors--two academic economists, a professor of law, a practicing attorney and consumer advocate, a state government regulator, an energy economist at the national level, and two economic researchers in the private sector--offer differing perspectives concerning major aspects of the "energy crisis" that faces the U.S. today. Taken together, their contributions form an excellent synthesis of modern thinking in the public utility regulation field.
Werner Sichel, professor of economics at Western Michigan University, received his Ph.D. from Northwestern University. He has served as a consultant to business firms, consumer groups, and law firms and is the author or editor of ten books and numerous articles in the fields of business and economics.
Public Utility Rate Making in an Energy-Conscious Environment
edited by Werner Sichel
First published 1979 by Westview Press
Published 2019 by Routledge
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Copyright 1979 Taylor & Francis
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
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Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Public utility rate making in an energy conscious
environment.
(Westview special studies in natural resources and
energy management)
Includes index.
1. Electric utilities--United States--Rates--Addresses,
essays, lectures. 2. Gas, Natural--United States--Rates-
Addresses, essays, lectures. 3. Energy policy--United
States--Addresses, essays, lectures.
I. Sichel, Werner.
HD9685.U5P83 338.4'3 78-18916
ISBN 13: 978-0-367-28483-1 (hbk)
To my father Joseph Sichel on his eightieth birthday
Contents
, Werner Sichel
, Paul L. Joskow
, Roger W. Koenker and David S. Sibley
, Lawrence Kumins
, Philip J. Mause
, Alfred L. Parker
, Thomas D. Morgan
, Eric Schneidewind
The essays in this book were originally prepared for presentation to the Seventh Michigan Conference on Public Utility Economics which took place in the spring of 1977 at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.
The conference was made possible by a grant from Michigan Bell Telephone Company to the University of Michigan and was under the direction of the Inter-University Committee on Public Utility Economics chaired by Dean William Haber from the University of Michigan. Others who served on the committee were Professor Thomas G. Gies, University of Michigan; Mr. Lloyd J. Haynes, vice-president for revenues and public relations, Michigan Bell Telephone Company; Professor Barbara Murray, University of Detroit; Professor William G. Shepherd, University of Michigan; Professor Harry Trebing, Michigan State University; and myself. I am grateful to all of these persons. Their help in topic and speaker selection was of enormous value.
I also thank a number of other people who played an important role in making the conference a success and this volume possible. Professor David J. Smyth, chairman of the Economics Department at Wayne State University, acted as our gracious host. Mrs. Elizabeth T. Bevins, secretary to Dean William Haber, assisted with the countless administrative tasks that needed to be done. Mrs. Cress Strand and Mrs. Christine Truckey did the typing, retyping, and all the sundry chores associated with the preparation of the manuscript.
My greatest debt, of course, is to the authors whose essays appear in this volume. They visited Wayne State University and delivered a version of the essays found in this book. They also subjected themselves to a barrage of questions and engaged in what amounted to a two-day dialogue with some 40 or so public utility regulation economists.
Last, I sincerely thank my wife Beatrice, my daughter Linda, and my son Larry, who, as always, provided the emotional support that I require to carry on my work.
Werner Sichel
Kalamazoo, Michigan
Werner Sichel is professor of economics at Western Michigan University. He received the Ph.D. in economics from Northwestern University in 1964. He has served as a consultant to several business firms, consumer groups, and law firms. Dr. Sichel is past president of the Economics Society of Michigan. In 1968-1969 he was a Fulbright-Hays senior lecturer at the University of Belgrade in Yugoslavia. He is a frequent contributor to various business and economics journals, especially in the field of industrial organization. He is the author of Basic Economic Concepts (2d. edition, 1977), and the editor of Industrial Organization and Public Policy: Selected Readings (1967), Antitrust Policy and Economic Welfare (1970), Public Utility Regulation: Change and Scope (1975), The Economic Effects of Multinational Corporations (1975), Salvaging Public Utility Regulation (1976), and Economic Advice and Executive Policy (1978).
